1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in an internal combustion engine. More particularly, the engine uses light weight pistons and where the piston moves linearly in the combustion cylinder that eliminates friction and side forces of the piston and eliminates the crankshaft.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
A number of patents and or publications have been made to address these issues. Exemplary examples of patents and or publication that try to address this/these problem(s) are identified and discussed below.
When the internal combustion engine is used as a four cycle engine with four cylinders where it uses four combustion units, each unit has a compressing combustion cylinder and a hydraulic cylinder where each piston of the two cylinders moves linearly and uses a gear and a pair of one-way clutches to extract the majority of the power to the output shaft, furthermore, a small crank shaft is used and the size of the crank shaft as much one quarter of the mass of an average crank shaft that would be used in a conventional combustion engine of similar displacement. This crankshaft operates the camshaft for exhaust and intake valves and for starting of the engine. The high pressure oil is used for intercooling the piston and the cylinder.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,584,610 issued Jun. 15, 1971 to Kilburn I. Porter discloses a radial internal combustion engine with pairs of diametrically opposed cylinders. While the piston arms exist in a fixed orientation to the pistons the volume under the pistons is not used to pump air into the intake stroke of the engine.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,945 issued Jul. 17, 1984 to Glen F. Chatfield discloses a cam controlled reciprocating piston device. One or opposing two or four pistons operates from special cams or yokes that replace the crankpins and connecting rods. While this patent discloses piston arms that are fixed to the pistons there also is no disclosure for using the area under each piston to move air into the intake stroke of the piston.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,480,599 issued Nov. 6, 1984 to Egidio Allais discloses a free-piston engine with operatively independent cam. The pistons work on opposite sides of the cam to balance the motion of the pistons. Followers on the cam move the pistons in the cylinders. The reciprocating motion of the pistons and connecting rod moves a ferric mass through a coil to generate electricity as opposed to rotary motion. The movement of air under the pistons also is not used to push air into the cylinders in the intake stroke.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,104,436 issued Jan. 31, 2012 to Gray Jr. Charles L. discloses a free-piston engine with the combustion engine that is couples to a hydraulic piston to produce hydraulic power that is used outside of the engine. High pressure oil is used in the hydraulic motor to extract the power that is created by the engine.